Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Tears and Vampires Loose on Campus

Tis the season, a time for tears on our campus. Recently, our students received their semester report cards and the administration has, to the shock of many parents, begun sending out notices requiring students earning multiple "F's" to attend 12 weeks of Saturday School.

This has also led to our February blizzard of parent conferences. Yep, a blizzard here in the desert. And oh, how the tears are flowing. Tears from students who have been caught lying to their parents about having homework completed, turning in said homework, passing tests, and behaving themselves in classes. Tears from the parent, usually a mom who has discovered her child lies to her, is a rude, viscous little snot at school, and is making choices in their young lives that might greatly impact the parents financial future. We make suggestions for the parent; demand your son/daughter show you their daily planner and the homework they claim to have completed, take away all their electronics; CD players, telephone, games, tv., etc. until the next report card where they have shown real improvement, encouraging them to make their son/daughter visit their teachers for help if they need it or attend the free after school tutoring, and to enroll in the "Parents helping their children with homework" class that is soon to be offered. We have a large box of tissue in the tiny room in the office where these conferences are usually held.

But, unfortunately, most of it seems to be crocodile tears. Most of these students quickly seem to go back to their lazy, lying, scheming ways, and the parents fall back into their non-involved mannor of parenting...... And us teachers will get hammered next fall because our test scores will not have gone up enough according to the edubureaucratic scale........

Happy Valentines Day! Yep, it was yesterday. Today, I asked a student to see the parent signature I required on a note to his mother I wrote in his daily planner."WELL, she saw it". He declared.

"Why didn't she sign it," I asked.

"Because we were at the hospital," he declared.

"Was someone sick or hurt?" I inquired.

"No, I was there because "Suzie Q." bit me in the neck and it was bleeding!" was his reply.

"OK, I've heard enough !" I stated.

But oh no, this blabber mouth kid wanted to tell me and of course, the class all about it. Such was five minutes of my period 3 History 7 class. Sometimes it is better to 'waste' five minutes than deal with all the side talks and notes that might erupt over such big news being reveled.